What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Read more about Langston Hughes at my post about him.

Aaron Douglas (1899-1979)

For 27 years, Aaron Douglas, founder of Fisk University’s Art Department, was also head of the Art Department at Fisk University, influencing a great many students, including a number who were to become prominent African American artists. Prior to that, Douglas was considered the leading artist of the Harlem Renaissance, known especially for his striking murals in libraries and other public buildings. These murals usually depicted significant events and people in African American history.His striking illustrations, murals, and paintings of the life and history of people of color depict an emerging black American individuality in a powerfully personal way. Douglas linked black Americans with their African past and proudly showed black contributions to society decades before the dawn of the civil rights movement. While his murals were usually two dimensional and almost geometrical, his portraits, such as this one of “Marian Anderson,” were traditional and classical.

The intellectual and social freedom of the era attracted many Black Americans from the rural south to the industrial centers of the north – and especially to New York City.